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Game of Thrones Pirates Being Monitored By HBO, Warnings On The Way (torrentfreak.com)

HBO is leaving no stones unturned in keeping Game of Thrones' piracy under control. The company is monitoring various popular torrent swarms and sending thousands of warnings targeted at internet subscribers whose connections are used to share the season 7 premiere of the popular TV series, reports TorrentFreak: Soon after the first episode of the new season appeared online Sunday evening, the company's anti-piracy partner IP Echelon started sending warnings targeted at torrenting pirates. The warnings in question include the IP-addresses of alleged BitTorrent users and ask the associated ISPs to alert their subscribers, in order to prevent further infringements. "We have information leading us to believe that the IP address xx.xxx.xxx.xx was used to download or share Game of Thrones without authorization," the notification begins. "HBO owns the copyright or exclusive rights to Game of Thrones, and the unauthorized download or distribution constitutes copyright infringement. Downloading unauthorized or unknown content is also a security risk for computers, devices, and networks." Under US copyright law, ISPs are not obligated to forward these emails, which are sent as a DMCA notification. However, many do as a courtesy to the affected rightsholders. The warnings are not targeted at a single swarm but cover a wide variety of torrents. TorrentFreak has already seen takedown notices for the following files, but it's likely that many more are being tracked.

7 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Meanwhile... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not available outside of the US, so there's that.
    If I want HBO's content, I need to pay an expensive cable subscription, I ain't doing that.
    After I got a warning email from HBO by my ISP, I just decided to Stream instead of Downloading. I'd like to see them monitor that.

  2. Re:The monitoring services they use suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think they pick IP addresses at random. I work for a tiny cable ISP, and we've gotten DMCA notices for addresses that have never been used.

  3. Re:I refer you to The Oatmeal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "so pirating content is often the only solution available "
    Is watching Game of Thrones now a human right or something? Are you arguing that you are not willing to pay for the content so your only choice is left is to steal it? People create original digital content and then set the terms of distribution and access. If you do not agree with the content provider terms you are not entitled to consume the digital content. The internet makes it hard for any digital rights to be effectively enforced but that doesn't make the theft legal. All the people upset about having to pay for their digital content do not have the right to dictate terms to the original content creator. That is what so sickening about this whole topic. People are demanding the right to any content they want regardless of any terms placed on the content by it's creator.

  4. Re:Meanwhile... by jonwil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Good luck getting Game of Thrones in Australia legally without paying $46/month to Foxtel for the privileged (and another $10/month if you want HD)

  5. Game Of Thrones DMCA Notices a Form Of Advertising by ZippyTheChicken · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just did a quick google because I cant really use torrent freak as a source.. seems that HBO has been sending out DMCA Notices every year since 2012 for the Premier of Game of Thrones .. Seems like Clickbait Advertising to get people riled up and to get word out about the new season.. they probably get billions in advertising by every site talking about it.

  6. Re: This is what happens... by stealth_finger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I watched half of the first season. It sucks.

    Same, for me its main problem was it started at the same time as spartacus and that was shit hot! While spartacus was basically equal parts hardcore violence, softcore porn and devious politics, game of thrones was all people being mopey, foreshadowing and a whole lot of fuck all going on.

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  7. Re:The monitoring services they use suck by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In fact they do pick at random. The trackers throw in a few random IP addresses and the tracking services don't bother to check if they can actually connect and download the data in question from them.

    You have to remember that the trackers are not motivated to do a good job. They don't bother with forensic quality evidence, they just spam as many people as possible and rely on some percentage of them panicking and paying up. If it gets as far as court and the defendant actually shows up, they almost always lose.

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